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Such as Chips enjoying Diego's new catnip pillow:
Or Diego in Steve's chair:
An arty shot:
Cats come in containers:
They really enjoy a pile of blankets:
They even enjoy sleeping in the out of doors:
And every once in awhile, they look like they will (eventually) become buddies.
The convolutions we went through to both see and hear the innauguration… well, it would have been easier to get a cable connection. NPR was the constant. My CNN live feed does the audio okay and the image is sharp and fully saturated, but jerky because my Mac is oooooooooold. Stephen's CNN feed was great although his old monitor gave a fuzzy, faded image, BUT something was wrong with the connection/drivers for the speakers so he could only listen to it on headphones. We would have watched his monitor and listened to on my speakers, except there was a time delay between the two computers (and that was different than the time delay of the NPR broadcast). So he listened to it on his headphones [image fully synced with sound], I listened with my headphones and jerky video on mine or with sound delay watching his. Anyway we heard it. And it was well worth hearing.
The quail are back. I wonder where they spend the holidays? I love that I now know their call and it seeps into my consciousness when I am occupied in something. Then I rush out and try to see them. A day or two ago there was a largish covey across the bridge in the neighbors yard. Then the sentries would send three of four at a time to to run across the road to the stream. It was like watching The Great Escape.
On a related note, I was upstairs on the computer and heard stuff happening downstairs in the kitchen. Looked around to see if a cat was responsible, but no, not this time.
I went downstairs thinking, 'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. there's a bird inside again [leaving doors wide open in 70+ degree January weather will lead to that possibility {no, not gloating -- and the fire hazard this summer will prove it}] and Stephen isn't here to deal with it.
It was a bumblebee trapped in the window over the stove and the blue jay on the sill outside trying to get to it as if there weren't a hard viscous surface between them.
I have a new lamp. My friend Diane told me a while ago that she had some good swing arm lamps that she wasn't using and now she has given me one. I can't tell you what a difference this makes. It is on my computer desk and it is the only place in the house that I can have light coming from my left -- an important quality for a right handed artist. Also important for reading. This makes all the difference in the world. Now I can lean my drawing board on the computer desk and work without waiting for mid-day light or having my drawing/stitching hand cast a shadow over the portion of my work that I actually need to see.
And finally --
January bare branches with ripe lemons.
Last night Stephen and I watched the award-winning DVD of Isaac Stern's trip to 1979 China, From Mao to Mozart.
It was just as good last night as I remember from sometime in the early 80s when a friend took me to see it; Oscar, was that you? Three things stood out for me back then -- one particular piece of music, a view of one of the Chinese river valleys, and a scene that was repeated through out the movie, although different people in it each time.
Oscar told me the piece of music: Cesar Franck, Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major, 4th movement. It is such a liquid conversation between the two instruments. Midori says, "The third movement
is a fantasy-filled self-reflection. It has a hint of self-indulgence,
with a dark and clenching mood as well as an ecstatic melodic line that
effectively contrasts with the peace and sense of attainment in the
fourth
and last movement. The flowing melody of quarter notes is immediately
stated at the start of the movement by the piano, which the violin
follows
in a canon. The two instruments take turns in initiating the canon throughout.
The sonata concludes with energetic elegance."
The repeated scene was that of every concert hall filled to the rafters with mesmerized audience members, all with black hair and most with white shirts. They watched with rapt attention as Stern schooled their best and brightest musicians in this decadent Western music that was only just beginning to be heard again after the Cultural Revolution of 1966 (I didn't remember that it was so recent -- occurring at the same time as the Viet Nam war). Stern shows these students that they must feel the passion as play, and as he demonstrates, it seems he makes love to each young person -- particularly the girls.
I don't know what rock I crawled from under when I saw the movie, but when it showed the view of a river valley and I saw the towering and forested rock formations along the walls of the river I realized all those Chinese landscapes paintings were not of fantasy landscapes, it was realism.
The DVD that is out now has an update of Stern returning to an almost unrecognizable Beijing twenty years later. He gets to meet with some of the same students who are now at the top of their profession. It is a lovely follow-up.
To celebrate tonight I'm making something I haven't had in over ten years: potstickers! I'm making them from scratch and gluten free.
Life can't get any better.
It is another gorgeous morning in our little valley off Tomales Bay. We are going to pay for it, big time, come summer unless we get some steady rains this month and next. It's cold enough in the morning for a light frost on the windshields but gets up to almost 70 during the day.
For those of you who wake up a little or a lot stiffer in the joints than you remember from just a year or ten ago, I'm going to pass on a suggestion of one of my physical therapists. When you are getting ready to get ready to get out of bed. While you are still thinking about how warm and comfy you are vs. how much you have to pee, lie on your back and tent your legs. Twist your knees to the right and left a couple of times, leaving your feet on the mattress -- this gets your lower back loosened.
After you sit up on the edge of the bed, twist your upper torso to the right and left several times, then reach your left hand in an arc over your head, bending at the waist to the right. Repeat on the alternate side.
Finish up by gently turning your head to the right and left a couple of times.
This takes two or three minutes, warms up your muscles and joints from the base of your spine on up to your head. It is an act of kindness to yourself.
Diego caught a mouse last night. I'm happy to have him catch as many rodents as he likes, although I prefer it when the cats don't bring them in for the torture part. I'm hoping that the rodents will be so willing to be killed that they will turn his attention from the birds. I fear for the baby quail, but I do know that the blue jays will torment him.
Stephen and I were remembering back to when Willow caught a mouse. While she was very proud of her capture, she wasn't quite sure what to do with it and she didn't seem to enjoy the taste of mouse fur in her mouth. She would put it down -- it would go into freeze mode -- and she would do that thing we all do when we get something fluffy/hairy in our mouths. Eventually her mouse escaped.
I don't think that Diego was that generous, but it was night and we didn't see the end of the story.
I think I have mentioned that Steve is an active sleeper when he does
sleep. I made two mistakes, er three, when I bought sheets (we have
only one set):
1. I bought sateen sheets which have a weaker structure in their weave than ordinary, but good thread count sheets.
2. I thought at first I could bleach them into submission, which weakened them further.
3.
I didn't turn the sheet so that every quarter was submitted to the
punishment he gives it. So the fabric near the edge of the fitted sheet
is so much thicker than in the one quarter that is most often under
Steve's upper body (and corresponding cuts, scrapes, jagged
fingernails, his watch, etc add to the corrosion).
Thus part of
today is spent adding another couple of leaf shaped patches to cover
yet more rents in the sheet, in hopes of being able to keep up with
them until I can buy a new sheet at the end of the month.
These are my choices that are on sale. I would prefer a higher thread count, but that fiesta stripe makes me kinda happy and the dun color at the bottom of the solids would be ever so practical.
What I want is this Espresso color:
Well, truly what I want is that shell pink at the bottom, but I don't see that as working particularly well. These 400-count sheets are not, of course, on sale.
Any hopes that I can use the fabric from my charmingly appliqued and stitched sheet for some other project after The Great Sheet Replacement are dashed from the start. I would need so many chemicals to whiten the background that West Marin would need a superfund project [yeah, like we still have funding for those] for clean-up of the clean-up. Instead I'm showing you the project in process using bleach from PhotoShop, which is far less toxic.
We have been having extra high and low tides of late which has increased the excitement of these wetlands restoration. These lands had levees that allowed more pasture land for the diary farmers, but as of the end of October, its the egrets that are doing the grazing.
It will probably be hard to see the difference, but here are two aerial photos taken by Robert Campbell that are sort of before and afters:
The Point Reyes National Seashore site has more information.
There seems to be something new to see every day and those egrets are really happy.
(Click on pictures to expand).
Well, that's what we call it. It is a grab bag from Trader Joe's. Roasted, unsalted almonds, cashew bits, pistachios, and sunflower seeds. Roasted, salted Marcona almonds. Raw pepitas. Large raisin mix. Orange infused cranberries.
We grab it when we want a munch. I used to take a handful when I didn't want to eat a meal but wanted something to help me along.
I started putting it out to wean Stephen off of the [salted] corn chips that he kept in the car to munch on. He would go off on an errand on a Saturday and it would end up taking all day -- I'd ask if he'd eaten and he would say he had some chips and coffee. Argh.
Now we are addicted to Magic Mix. But there is good magic and bad magic and apparently, for me, this is bad magic.
Either I've eaten so much of it that my slight sensitivity of almonds has increased or it is just too much sugar from the fruits for my system. It's taken me two days to get off of the variety of effects -- no details -- that I experienced. Now I slaver as I watch Stephen munch and make some popcorn when I'm desperate -- it's not the same AT ALL. In a week or so, I will try to determine whether it is the fruit or the nuts, but until then, I will suffer out loud. As is my wont.
Cat note: My boys slept together on the SAME pillow! Chips used to drive me crazy by sleeping on the free corner of the bed [my side, of course, because I don't dance like a dervish through the night like Stephen] so I couldn't straighten my legs. I piled a couple of pillows next to the window above my head, put a fuzzy blanket over it and moved my own pillows down a bit. We were both happy and now Diego joined him at least part of the night. I think this is a good sign.
Chips is making his reptile eyes.
Happy New Year!
How are you fixing your black-eyed peas for luck and greens for money today? Pioneer Woman has a black-eyed pea salsa or salad that looks fantastic. We are having soupy peas and spanish rice and spinach. I think it is supposed to be collards or cabbage, but Wikipedia's source also includes spinach:
Of course, I already had the spinach and am glad that I can support using spinach instead of going back to the store. The Chinese have fish for prosperity in the New Year, but is that for Western New Year or only Chinese New Year?
So. I received my Territorial Seeds catalog a week or so ago. I circled just about everything in it which means that I will need to go back and pick more carefully or rent some new land for the ranch. I think it will be the former. However, my one terrace of vegetables will be expanding to four levels this time around. And although it is too early to work the ground, I do have to dig out the beds to lay down chicken wire underneath. The real trick will be the deer fence around the top three tiers. The bottom tier -- the 'ground floor' -- will be the zucchini, winter squash and rhubarb, for which the deer haven't shown any interest.
I get the catalog, but mostly I buy plants rather than seeds, unless they can be directly sown. We do not have any place to start seeds at our place. Buying plants ends up more expensive and I don't get the more interesting varieties, but we get vegetables and that's the important part.
Although, maybe I haven't become creative enough -- perhaps some coolers with clear plastic sheeting over them will allow me at least a few fun starts.
What about you? Do you have 3 AM dreams of your 2009 garden waking you up?
